Collecting amazing and interesting things on the web.
November 5, 2014
accessibility / css / design
From Bruce Lawson:
A while ago, there was discussion in CSS Working Group about an alt property to be added to CSS. Its purpose is to let assistive technology know the meaning of unicode characters inserted into a visual rendering of a document with CSS generated content.
November 4, 2014
design / navigation / user experience
Remember, the three key things about an intuitive navigation system is that they tell you where you are, and they show you where else you can go. Hamburger menus are terrible at both of those things, because the menu is not on the screen. It’s not visible. Only the button to display the menu is.
October 1, 2014
design / illustrator / photoshop
When I took an illustration class in art school, I got really good at the pen tool in Illustrator. When I took a job at a web agency the next year, I got really good at the pen tool in Photoshop. Of course they’re very different, so I forgot how to use it in Illustrator. These days I don’t do much of either, so I’ve mostly forgotten how to use both. Here’s a game!
September 30, 2014
data / design / user experience / wearables
There are so many opportunities in the fact that we can now wear data. But the risk is that it will wear us.
It doesn’t have to be that way, of course. Careful, humane design can give us the benefits of wearing data without allowing information poisoning to seep beyond the screen and into our physical selves.
September 30, 2014
But in our efforts to improve the ways we communicate as teammates and collaborators, it’s important to understand that there are differences between feedback and critique. More specifically, there are characteristics that separate critique as just one of 3 kinds of feedback, all of which vary in their level of usefulness to us in the design process. Understanding the three kinds of feedback is key to our ability to react and use feedback in improving our creations.
September 23, 2014
php / programming / wordpress
A standardized, organized, object-oriented foundation for building high-quality WordPress Plugins.
September 21, 2014
I’m only vaguely familiar with The Bitter Southerner, but am really happy to have found this piece. It depicts modern Atlanta like few things I’ve read.
The determination of these men to soldier on in the face of futility is often taken as a sign of their fighting spirit. I’m inclined to think it was just a bullheaded refusal to face the failure they had wrought. This may not be a characteristic unique to the South, but there can be no doubt that the South has long walked arm in arm with denial. And still does.
September 21, 2014
Just a fascinating list of things to learn about.
September 9, 2014
I teach theory and practice of social media at NYU, and am an advocate and activist for the free culture movement, so I’m a pretty unlikely candidate for internet censor, but I have just asked the students in my fall seminar to refrain from using laptops, tablets, and phones in class.
September 3, 2014
A former Apple designer talks about deadlines, and the willingness the company holds to change those things if stuff isn’t good enough. This is why “deadline-driven” is often code for work all the time, make bad stuff, or both.
Every aspect of the company’s production cycle, from conception to ship date, is calculated. But–and this is a big but–what makes Apple different is that it is a company that is willing to move those deadlines. If a product in development isn’t ready to be released, the deadline is pushed back. If an idea isn’t perfect or isn’t considered truly magical and delightful internally, it’s held back, revised, and the product given an entirely new launch date.